Okay, since when do two-bit terrorist groups have missiles capable of ripping a large hole in several meters of solid concrete?

A post to a blog, as this one, is a reference to a current news-article which tells you something about the mainstream perception of high-level threats.

It’s scary to think that nuclear terror really has arrived with the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko.

I agree that on the “existential risk”-scale nuclear terror is a lesser threat than NBIC-attacks. The difference is that nuclear terror could happend now and advanced enough NBIC-attacks (that wreak more havoc than a nuclear terror/error) are future threats.

Maybe it’s my geostrategic position (in Norway) that makes me uncomfortable with nuclear power plants in my back yard. I admit my bias. :)

See: Chenrobyl Fallout Map

Okay, let’s say Mr. Random Terrorist Guy wants to use a nuclear power plant for evil. He walks right through the first, second, and third doors, past the multiple checkpoints, and the security guards drop their weapons and get him a limo so he can cruise right through the plant in style. The plant operators all come out, jump to their feet, and shout “At your command, Sir!”

Even in this ludicrous scenario, what’s Mr. Terrorist going to do? Melt down the core? Even assuming it’s an older nuclear plant that doesn’t use meltdown-proof equipment like pebble bed and several other types of reactors, what would happen? Obviously the plant would be wrecked, and a few hundred million dollars worth of equipment would be destroyed and a radioactive mess created that would take months to clean up. But the nuclear core is inconveniently surrounded with a two-to-three meter thick concrete shell, in addition to steel and other layers of heavy material. And unlike Chernobyl, Western reactors do not use large quantities of uncooled graphite as a moderator, eliminating the possibility of a graphite fire that would rip the plant apart. Nuclear plants are already probably the safest civilian industrial facilities in the world, with something like more than half the plant’s construction budget going to safety.

Why has Lifeboat been talking so much about nuclear terrorism? Nuclear terrorism, on Nick Bostrom’s scale of risks, is a personal total disaster and a regional recoverable disaster. What about bioterrorism, nanoterrorism, or UFAI-terrorism, all of which are serious existential risks?